No health insurance? Pay a fine

WASHINGTON -- First you paid to insure your car. Soon you may have to add health insurance premiums to that stack of monthly bills as well.

[Tony]

Bend over and grab your ankles. Thanks President Osama.

[LibertyFirst]

Ahh the tyranny of the state!!!! When will people start endorsing freedom? Is this the type of thing we celebrate on the 4th of July?

[CCD fan]

If I can't afford health insurance how can I afford $1000 a year in fines? This is ridiculous. My job doesn't even offer insurance and I work full time. How about fining employers that don't offer insurance???

[Skeptical Thinker]

CCD fan wrote:

How about fining employers that don't offer insurance???

That is one of the proposals being considered.

[Peter]

If you don't pay the government- Fines and sometimes Jail.

If you don't pay a private corp- late fees and collection agencies harrassing you.

Which is better?

[CCD fan]

Skeptical Thinker wrote:

<quoted text>That is one of the proposals being considered.

It says about a fee for larger companies that don't offer health insurance. I work for a small company (less than 5 full time employees - less than 50 part time).

[Oregon Is Disgusting]

CCD fan wrote:

If I can't afford health insurance how can I afford $1000 a year in fines? This is ridiculous. My job doesn't even offer insurance and I work full time. How about fining employers that don't offer insurance???

How about getting RID of private insurance altogether and have Single Payer?

It's cheaper, you will never go into medical bankruptcy, you can take any job you like without worrying about not getting insurance, you will never be rescinded for failing to dot an i on your insurance application.

Imagine that.

[F_I_N_E]

Oregon Is Disgusting wrote:

<quoted text>
How about getting RID of private insurance altogether and have Single Payer?
It's cheaper, you will never go into medical bankruptcy, you can take any job you like without worrying about not getting insurance, you will never be rescinded for failing to dot an i on your insurance application.
Imagine that.

Well, then wouldn't that make treatment and prevention be dictated by that one Payer?

[Paparounis]

Oregon Is Disgusting wrote:

<quoted text>
How about getting RID of private insurance altogether and have Single Payer?
It's cheaper, you will never go into medical bankruptcy, you can take any job you like without worrying about not getting insurance, you will never be rescinded for failing to dot an i on your insurance application.
Imagine that.

Pure hearsay. Prove it.

[Paparounis]

CCD fan wrote:

If I can't afford health insurance how can I afford $1000 a year in fines? This is ridiculous. My job doesn't even offer insurance and I work full time. How about fining employers that don't offer insurance???

Employers owe their employees nothing more than the compensation they mutually agreed to upon accepting the job.

[My deepest thoughts]

It is like having nationalized health care that has been outsourced. Basically by forcing every citizen to enroll in a health care program insures that money will flow into insurance companies. I only wonder what people are sitting around smoking cigars and picking which health care provider will be the cash cow.

[Oregon Is Disgusting]

F_I_N_E wrote:

<quoted text>
Well, then wouldn't that make treatment and prevention be dictated by that one Payer?

As opposed to the for-profit, denial-of-benefits-bonus private health insurance market?

You do realize, don't you, that single payer would be US. Single payer would be YOU. You do understand the difference, right?

[Oregon Is Disgusting]

Peter wrote:

If you don't pay the government- Fines and sometimes Jail.
If you don't pay a private corp- late fees and collection agencies harrassing you.
Which is better?

When was the last time you failed to pay your payroll taxes? It isn't that hard.

If you don't pay your medical bill, you go bankrupt. If we have single payer, no one goes bankrupt.

[Oregon Is Disgusting]

"Reinhardt recalled attending the five-year celebration in Taiwan of its adoption of a universal coverage system. Taiwan’s president, he said, recalled the gratitude of elderly farmers on a visit to the countryside who grasped his hands and said,“‘Thank you, thank you, now when I go to sleep I don’t have to worry’” about having money for care.“And the president stood there, and tears were rolling down his cheeks. And that’s what it will take. We need in America a president who cares about the American people like that.”

Reinhardt said Americans “act more and more like a people sharing a geography. You don’t have the ethos that goes with being a nation. In Canada, in Taiwan, they view health care as the cement that makes a nation out of a group of people, rich or poor, when they are sick.

“The other thing we need to recover in this country is a sense of shame.

“All the details, the technical details, we can cover that ... what we cannot do is get the politics straight. And the politics is just another name for moral tradeoffs,” Reinhardt said.

Hou made a similar point in his interview. In Taiwan,“the social value has it that the government must take care of the people, while Americans believe in self-reliance,” he said. Self-reliance is “respectable,” but the facts show “that it can not solve the problem of the uninsured.

“With strong political leadership, national health insurance is definitely not beyond reach, not so far-fetched,” Hou said."

CQ

[Oregon Is Disgusting]

This is what the right wing immorality has done to this country. Most Americans say nothing about the $14 TRILLION promised to save the banking system from its own gambling losses but think that sharing single payer health care with their neighbor is socialism.

[Tony]

Oregon is disgusting is really quite nutty. Do they have free mental health care in Canada. You should check into it.

[F_I_N_E]

Oregon Is Disgusting wrote:

<quoted text>
As opposed to the for-profit, denial-of-benefits-bonus private health insurance market?
You do realize, don't you, that single payer would be US. Single payer would be YOU. You do understand the difference, right?

You answered my question with three more questions. Along with any changes that happen I do not want to see my options shrunk into this tiny little box. I do not want to be one of the many 40 year olds on an average of 5 medications...stuff lidat. When choosing coverage at my job I was able to choose between a sort of dictator carrier and another which allows you to seek alternatives. I bet you know which one I chose--the one that covers more holistic approaches, such as integration of acupuncture and Western medicine. I had a health problem for 8 months and had I taken the Keiser option...they'd just keep prescribing me more antibiotics...even though the heaviest of that sort of artillery had already been tried.

Basically, the way I see universal health care working in other countries...people do not have much control over their health and well-being.

[buzzer]

If the healthcare system in Canada is so great why do the canadians come to the US for healthcare?

[MisterTibbs]

I don't know so tell me again why do some Americans go to Canada for health care?

buzzer wrote:

If the healthcare system in Canada is so great why do the canadians come to the US for healthcare?

[YouHelpFixIt]

Call this what you want, but this is just a tax a tax on the uninsured.